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Adams Center High School Annual – 1922

Adams Center, Jefferson County, NY

We’ve just published another high school yearbook — this one nearly a century old — so we thought we ought to comment on this particular one. High school yearbooks capture moments in time – or at least the best of them do. This one, soft cover and limited size included, give us a glimpse of this Jefferson County community at the beginning of the Roaring Twenties – an era which would change American culture in significant ways. It also represents a time when there seemed to not yet be a consensus about exactly what belonged in a high school yearbook, as the contents of this number illustrates.

Adams Center High School – Annual for 1922

First, the graduates that year numbered seven. That’s not exactly a large graduating class. So, absent was the customary bunch of pages of portraits and accomplishments. A single photo suffices for the class. There is a senior class history. A senior class will. A senior class prophecy and a class poem. An address by the class president, followed by a response by a member of the junior class. Then follows a series of essays: “The United States Merchant Marine” “The Grand Canyon of Arizona” “A Drama” (about Shakespeare’s Macbeth) “Helen Hunt Jackson” (identified as one of the most famous women in the United States; unknown today, she seems to have been an advocate for Native Americans).

Remarks by the Principal at the presentation of diplomas are followed by an article advocating for a new high school. Then comes a curious table called “School Census, 1921-1922 – Incomplete Returns” which we presume was humorous. With prohibition in effect, next comes the obligatory article “Alcohol as a Menace”, followed by a light-hearted section called “Ifs” and a “Who’s Who”. A photo of the baseball team is followed by a history of the school, which is in turn followed by reports on the various sports teams.

Unexpected contents

Then comes a real oddity: the constitution and by-laws of the Ontario Interscholastic Baseball League. (we are still scratching our collective heads over that one!). Then some current poetry – again, presumably humorous if you knew the individuals mentioned. Some more humor is punctuated by a photo of the girls’ basketball team.

Rather abruptly a photo of the Adams Center High School faculty appears, along with the list of the members of the board of education. A boon here for family historians, next to come is a list of alumni by class, including their present city of residence. Class years begin with 1899, and the compilation is acknowledged to be incomplete. Then comes a list of the members of each class of the high school – including two post grads – and a list by class of those in the elementary school. Ten pages of advertisements wrap up the book.